where the industry is heading,” says Will
Bryan, vice president of technology and
market development for Superior Essex.

“The PoE lighting system provides unprec-edented control of the customer experiencewhile also enabling power efficiencies unat-tainable with legacy lighting systems.”Mike Siefer, chief technology officer atPlatformatics, shares this view. “I thinkthe most enjoyable aspect was knowingthat you’re on that cutting-edge technol-ogy and achieving what hasn’t been donebefore,” says Siefer. “From a looks stand-point, it’s historic; from a technologystandpoint, it’s state-of-the-art.”These sentiments are reflected inthe experience of many of West Baden’sguests. Throughout its history, the atriumbeneath the dome has been a place forguests to congregate. Today, patrons andemployees alike spend hours in the atriumexamining all of the lavish details of thespace, necks craned, eyes turned upward,gathering their own unique perspective ofthe kaleidoscopic architecture. At night,this arena becomes all the more magi-cal as guests take in the dazzling lightsabove. Awe is scrawled across theirfaces—not only, it seems, because of thevisual cues, but also the feeling it im-parts—a feeling of legacy, but not anti-quation, of opulence without pretention.It is welcoming, and encourages every-one to round the next corner and ex-plore its secrets and historical treasures.This is the real magic of the West BadenSprings Hotel—that underneath its sub-lime architecture, we are all partici-pating in something older, bigger, andgrander than ourselves. u

Amir Sekhavat is director of copper product management and enterprise market development, and James Neeley is communications lead with Superior Essex ( www.spsx.com).
Matt Laherty is chief executive officer of
Platformatics ( www.platformatics.com).

The West Baden Springs Hotel’s dome had no readily accessible path to the top of
the dome. The installation teams built this track, which scaled the exterior of the
dome, stretching from the flat roof up to the rounded surface to the compression
ring at the top. Using a makeshift cart to travel the length of this track, the crews
were able to get the materials in place to build the server room then install the
telecommunications equipment.